Maintaining proper brooding temperature is critical to effective poultry brooding since temperature variations cause chicks to expend energy to maintain body temperature rather than to increase body weight. Thus, it is desirable to keep the poultry house warm so that the food energy contained in the feed is used to produce weight gain by the bird rather than producing body heat. Furthermore, it is necessary to keep a continuous flow of air through the poultry house to dissipate ammonia that is generated as a waste product by the chickens. A minimum air flow of 3 mph in the poultry house is necessary to prevent chickens from being injured by ambient ammonia in the poultry house. Brooder heaters in the house must operate under air flow conditions sufficient to exhaust the ammonia. It is necessary in some climates to run higher ventilation rates (for example in tunnel houses using evaporative cooling) during the day to assist with cooling, but still need the heat at night when the outside temperature cools. Under these operating conditions the air flow within the poultry house is 7–9 mph. The wind outside the poultry house can also influence the air flow inside the house. Therefore, it is desirable that the heaters operate reliably under a variety of operating conditions. A problem with the current heaters, and in particular poultry brooders having a radiant or ceramic heating element with a gas pilot light, is that when the air flow is above 3 mph there is sufficient flow to either blow the pilot light out or to displace the flame of the pilot light from the thermocouple, such that the thermocouple is cooled, thereby generating a false signal that the pilot light has been blown out. The thermocouple then causes the burner's solenoid gas valve to shut off the gas supply line.
Therefore, what is needed is a brooder heater that can reliably turn on and off over a range of air flow conditions. When off, the pilot light of the pilot assembly reliably stays lit, and the thermocouple accurately detects that the pilot light is burning therein maintaining the gas supply valve actuatable. When turned on, the gas supply line is actuated, the pilot assembly ignites the gas with an acceptable level of flash, the pilot light remains lit, and the thermocouple accurately detects that the pilot light is burning.
A typical brooder chicken house has 15–30 brooder heaters, and after each lot of chickens are grown, approximately 6–8 weeks, the brooder heaters are serviced prior to bringing in the next group of chickens. What is need is maintenance friendly heater, wherein the pilot light orifice can be easily accessed and cleaned.